The story is great, but it blatantly gets in the way of the rest of the game

there's a very simple solution to this for those that want to just play the "Game". cause at the end of the day it is still a game. have a level 15 quest that unlocks the duty finder for ARR after completing all the core dungeons trials etc... you revisit the NPC to unlock the next set of content rinse repeat for all the expansions (they can easily say since you did save the GCs fromt he garleans (you still have forced CS to watch for prae and the such and (you could potentially throw in short summaries of important events after certain dungeons that would only proc after completing the dungeon or trial for the first time but thats not what i would do tbh cause they may eventually want to go back and experience it in full cause all they know now is that they saved the GCs from the evil garleans trying to invade)) of course they would prolly add more ot this just using it as a placeholder for ideas sake. they hand you the quest to unlock your mount and join a GC/ability to join hunts unlocking that content and then grant you access to ishgard hearing that they're in need of help with a dragon problem (you being the hero for the GCs makes the most sense to send over) you go through the core HW dungeons/trials and return to the quest giver now in ishgard who hails you as the alliancer of man and dragon (again this can be worked on) (but he's heard news of rebellion groups in yanxia and ala mhigo against the garlemald presence there. you having already fought and won against the garleans think it's only right to head over and lend your assistance) complete the core dungeons/trials of SB then speak to the questgiver in kugane

this is honestly where my idea ends cause i can't really think of how you'd tie in STB to SHB (the only thing i can think of is you being summoned there and he crystal exarch being the "questgiver" for unlocking the SHB dungeons/raids) but my point is this is possible to do for at least 3 main parts of the story cause going purely through the dungeons/trials you can piece together a relatively basic story for each expansion in a vaccum and semi overarching like i said tying ARR to STB

of course when you unlock each new area you also unlock the NG+ for the previous expansion/ARR so if you so choose you can go back and experience the real story (which lets be real if you are here only for the "game" you'll prolly ignore anyways) but i digress while this may not be easy to implement it is a simple solution not only for those who want to straight skip to say end game but for those who want to skip parts they may consider more sloggy like post ARR just do the new core dungeons/trials it unlocks (which is more than fair imo) plus we already have systems in place to see if you've completed a dungeon before so there's no need to force a full redo of all dungeons/trials

I would keep it simple, quest to 15, unlock the dungeons. At each level cap you unlock flying in that expansion's content and the next expansions dungeons. Once you are 80 you can start the EW quest line starting with the first quest released with the EW. This should also apply to all expansions actually, so if you get to SB for example and want to play through that you can.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Am I reading your suggestion correctly here? The answer is to, quite literally, rewrite the entire game to resolve the problems some new players have with content being gated behind the MSQ? How about we do away with the MSQ entirely? That'd certainly mean a much quicker run up to the so-called "End Game" so that people can enjoy two months of content every couple of years. And, while they're at it, they may as well remove all the earlier patch end-game content, since it's no longer current. Dungeons too. That'd certainly resolve the issue.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous read of the OP, and your comment, but it would certainly take care of the "New Players hate slogging through 8 years of content" argument that keeps cropping up. Of course, at that point I'd expect most of the playerbase to bail.

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You don't really have to rewrite the story, just not gate things behind the story. It's not hard to do and really wouldn't ruin peoples experiences of the story specially if it was made optional. It's really dumb the way people don't think the game should cater to a better new player experience while they are literally reworking the trust system in every expansion to cater to players that prefer a single player experience.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

I would keep it simple, quest to 15, unlock the dungeons. At each level cap you unlock flying in that expansion's content and the next expansions dungeons. Once you are 80 you can start the EW quest line starting with the first quest released with the EW. This should also apply to all expansions actually, so if you get to SB for example and want to play through that you can.

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thats kinda what i was getting at with you unlocking the previous expansions NG+/ unlocking the next area it jumps your story position to the starting quest of the new expansion so when you skip post ARR and get to ishgard for example you have a new quest in the top left corner that show the first HW quest instead of whatever quest you were on

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

thats kinda what i was getting at with you unlocking the previous expansions NG+/ unlocking the next area it jumps your story position to the starting quest of the new expansion so when you skip post ARR and get to ishgard for example you have a new quest in the top left corner that show the first HW quest instead of whatever quest you were on

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Yeah I was kinda of summarizing it, and tacking on the flying, I would even say aetheryte crystals as well.
I doubt with out rewriting some sort of code, it would let you do the first HW quest while having an ARR MSQ quest. With how poorly designed this game is as a whole I would not be surprised if it caused some sort of flag that wouldn't allow you to pick up 2 MSQ quests, or cause some sort of issue allowing you to trigger the MSQ for HW. Which is why it should more or less maybe a per expansion option that starts with the first quest, and you can either not do the MSQ and grind how ever you want, or you can do the MSQ but you are in it to completion. That would be the lazy way to do it atleast, the correct way would be fix the problems that may be caused due to the flags, but that won't happen. We can't even get hats on bunnies yet.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

You don't really have to rewrite the story, just not gate things behind the story. It's not hard to do and really wouldn't ruin peoples experiences of the story specially if it was made optional. It's really dumb the way people don't think the game should cater to a better new player experience while they are literally reworking the trust system in every expansion to cater to players that prefer a single player experience.

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Considering the fact that the purpose behind the creation and continuing development of this game is the story, with dungeons and trials contributing to that story (not separated from the story like so many other MMOs), you are asking the developers to abandon the basis of the game in order to satisfy some supposed 'new player' experience.

Do you ask that of every game you play? Completely abandon the reason the game is different in order for it to better conform to what you think the game should be?

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

thats kinda what i was getting at with you unlocking the previous expansions NG+/ unlocking the next area it jumps your story position to the starting quest of the new expansion so when you skip post ARR and get to ishgard for example you have a new quest in the top left corner that show the first HW quest instead of whatever quest you were on

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Um... you know that's what the Story Skip actually does, right?

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Considering the fact that the purpose behind the creation and continuing development of this game is the story, with dungeons and trials contributing to that story (not separated from the story like so many other MMOs), you are asking the developers to abandon the basis of the game in order to satisfy some supposed 'new player' experience.

Do you ask that of every game you play? Completely abandon the reason the game is different in order for it to better conform to what you think the game should be?

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Story is not the only thing that people play this game for. If that were the case, most people would simply unsub once they've gone through those tiny story-patches we get every so often. There is a lot of other content in this game that draws people to XIV, and I'm failing to see how making that more easily accessible could possibly be a bad thing for the game as a whole.

It is possible to keep a heavy story going in the game while allowing people options on how/when they jump into it. Yes, story skips exist, but IMO that's a cheap fix for SE being short-sighted in how they've handled the intertwining of the MSQ.

If we're looking at things that have been poorly implented in-game, I would rank the forced-MSQ up there with housing and Viera/Hroth.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Um... you know that's what the Story Skip actually does, right?

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ah yes cause i should pay more on the fact i have a monthly subscription and paid a BASE PRICE for the game/expansion to get access to content i PAID for already i can understand paying to skip (or progress faster) in a F2P game but when you're already asking for money and then more money on top of that you have no right to be locking anything game related behind paywalls (yes cosmetics emotes and mounts etc.. i'd also debate against but it's not nearly as bad as most other games we've had before *cough* anthem *cough*. plus alot of the stuff is from in game events that do cycle through every now and again) (and no expansions should still cost money cause thats brand new content not stuff that was made years ago and they already bundle all of the older expansions in with the current expansion bundle so thats fine) if i want to skip straight to EW by PLAYING THE GAME. by golly i paid for the game so i'm going to skip to EW for free using a sped up leveling/content unlock system and not spending money on a story skip and level boost.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Story is not the only thing that people play this game for.
...
If we're looking at things that have been poorly implented in-game, I would rank the forced-MSQ up there with housing and Viera/Hroth.

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While story isn't the only reason that people play this game, it is the primary reason the game was developed in the first place. It's what makes the game part of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Incorporating dungeons and trials into the story is another differentiator between this game and a lot of other MMOs. I can level without every hitting a single dungeon instance in so many other MMOs. I do not desire this game to be turned into one of the "so many other MMOs" since all of them are currently not experiencing anywhere near the same success as this one.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

While story isn't the only reason that people play this game, it is the primary reason the game was developed in the first place. It's what makes the game part of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Incorporating dungeons and trials into the story is another differentiator between this game and a lot of other MMOs. I can level without every hitting a single dungeon instance in so many other MMOs. I do not desire this game to be turned into one of the "so many other MMOs" since all of them are currently not experiencing anywhere near the same success as this one.

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My only real experience with the world of FF would be XI and XIV - both of SE's MMOs. I understand that storytelling is huge for the franchise, and I think there is even a quote from Yoshi floating around where he mentions wanting the story to play a big part (majorly paraphrased from a poor memory...I'd have to look it up), but they could have designed it in a way that allowed more freedom and choice for the players.

XI managed this by having mostly self-contained stories for each expansion. XIV took a different approach with its overarching story, but at the very least, I wish they would let people pick which expansion they start in so they can get to the content of their choosing quicker. Maybe something akin to NG+ where you can pick an expansion to play at any given time, while saving your progress if you switch to another story (NG+ does NOT save progress if you swap). That would mean some people are playing the story out of order, but I think that would be an OK decision to leave up to the individual players. It may be worth it for some people to get into current/whatever content they want quicker, while also having the option to go back to the start and enjoy the story from the beginning when it suits them best.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Considering the fact that the purpose behind the creation and continuing development of this game is the story, with dungeons and trials contributing to that story (not separated from the story like so many other MMOs), you are asking the developers to abandon the basis of the game in order to satisfy some supposed 'new player' experience.

Do you ask that of every game you play? Completely abandon the reason the game is different in order for it to better conform to what you think the game should be?

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I wouldn't say its a reason this game is different. Maybe you don't play a lot of MMO's but they also have stories with dungeons, trials contributing to that story. They also have ways to not have to do it multiple times on alt characters, or developed long enough to allow players to hop in and progress the way they choose. I think we are at that time where that should be allowed. And I never said to abandon the basis of the game, I said make it better for the new players. If you can't attract and retain new players, the game will eventually die. These changes don't affect me at all it simply helps new players. Sorry if I don't believe they should have to pay $50 to do that SE milks enough money from the rest of us off this game.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

While story isn't the only reason that people play this game, it is the primary reason the game was developed in the first place. It's what makes the game part of the Final Fantasy franchise.

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You can lie to yourself and say this, it was developed for steady profit to fund into other projects. I would not be surprised if after EW the funds allocated to FFXIV are cut in half and more money is funneled to other projects as the story is now complete. It will just be a passion projects like FFXI. That being said it can still have a story... you act as though allowing other people to not do the story, your story experience is going to suffer. I don't see why it hurts you or others to allow players to level the way they want up to the current expansion. I never said anything about skipping the current expansions MSQ that should still be gated behind the MSQ for obvious reasons. I am just saying don't charge people to skip, give them options, it just makes for a better game over all.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

You can lie to yourself and say this, it was developed for steady profit to fund into other projects.

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Pfui. You should be well aware of the fact that the statement "games are developed for steady profit" is already assumed in any discussion about the direction of a game.

Please let me know if you, personally, never make that assumption when discussing the reasons games are not all designed the same way.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

I never said anything about skipping the current expansions MSQ that should still be gated behind the MSQ for obvious reasons.

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Herein lies the problem. "You let me skip all the MSQ up to this point. Why do I have to do it now? I don't care about the story. I just want to get to the 'real game' doing raids and stuff."

The story being a structure that all other content grows from is something unique to this game. And degrading that structure by allowing it to be bypassed without a price tag will damage that structure. They have said they may consider a new starting point at some point in the future but they will need to be careful they don't de-legitimize the importance of story as the root of the game and I imagine that factors into why they don't make it easier to skip.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Maybe you don't play a lot of MMO's but they also have stories with dungeons, trials contributing to that story. They also have ways to not have to do it multiple times on alt characters

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I don't play a lot of MMOs (only played Ragnarok Online, but that's a different kind).
How do they handle leveling alts then? Because, if you skip all cutscenes on your alt, I always assumed you could get to max level in no time, and the MSQ was really just free xp in this case...

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Herein lies the problem. "You let me skip all the MSQ up to this point. Why do I have to do it now? I don't care about the story. I just want to get to the 'real game' doing raids and stuff."

The story being a structure that all other content grows from is something unique to this game. And degrading that structure by allowing it to be bypassed without a price tag will damage that structure. They have said they may consider a new starting point at some point in the future but they will need to be careful they don't de-legitimize the importance of story as the root of the game and I imagine that factors into why they don't make it easier to skip.

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Story being a structure all content grows from is definitely not unique to FFXIV, that is how most games work. You won't be degrading any structure in anyway shape or form that doesn't exist already behind a bs pay wall. It will not way de-legitimize the importance of the story or root of the game, by giving players an OPTION to not partake if they choose. This would in no way affect anyone that does not choose this option so, it really does not matter. As far as why they would not be able to skip the current expansions story, is self explanatory, because it is current, same reason you cannot buy a skip for it.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

I don't play a lot of MMOs (only played Ragnarok Online, but that's a different kind).
How do they handle leveling alts then? Because, if you skip all cutscenes on your alt, I always assumed you could get to max level in no time, and the MSQ was really just free xp in this case...

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WoW gives you options of selecting which expansion you want to play through when leveling 1-50. After 50 if you have completed shadowlands you can choose not to go through the story again, and just do dungeons, side quests, or world quests to level.

Lost ark allows you to pay gold to skip certain story segments that you have already completed on another character.

Besides the very beginning, I don't think I ever played msq for levels. That's what the daily duty roulette is for.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

WoW gives you options of selecting which expansion you want to play through when leveling 1-50. After 50 if you have completed shadowlands you can choose not to go through the story again, and just do dungeons, side quests, or world quests to level.

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Oh yeah, 18 years of great story across multiple expansions have been reduced to leveling on an island and going directly from there to BFA ... the best of the best of the best of expansions ever, with no context whatsoever about who these people you see in cutscenes are and why you should care. If that had been my initial 'experience' playing WoW 14 years ago, I'd have gone through that much of the 'free to play' (the island) and quit, rather than staying subscribed for 10 years.

@OP: Yyyes, this is a jrpg that happens to be an mmo, not world of warcraft's design of a collection of endgame raiding/grinding systems with a few recognizable characters stapled on every so often.

The game is in service to the story, not the other way around.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

'

Oh yeah, 18 years of great story across multiple expansions have been reduced to leveling on an island and going directly from there to BFA ... the best of the best of the best of expansions ever, with no context whatsoever about who these people you see in cutscenes are and why you should care. If that had been my initial 'experience' playing WoW 14 years ago, I'd have gone through that much of the 'free to play' (the island) and quit, rather than staying subscribed for 10 years.

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Originally Posted by SpiralMask

@OP: Yyyes, this is a jrpg that happens to be an mmo, not world of warcraft's design of a collection of endgame raiding/grinding systems with a few recognizable characters stapled on every so often.

The game is in service to the story, not the other way around.

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I will leave it with this, if you want to force every new player to do the story, sure leave it how it is the game is going to eventually die at some point so why not sooner by gating new players and causing them to quit. Eventually you will get no more new players getting any where, max level content will start to suffer, and all there will really be to do once you hit max level is pray you have a house to play doll house, dress up, and RP/ERP. Which makes it slowly become a niche game for a niche group of people.

If you want it to live longer, somethings got to change to be more new player friendly, as again that is one of the most common things that cause players to quit is the long grind through the MSQ. How anyone feels about how good the MSQ it does not change that fact, that it is one of the greatest aspects of the game, while being the greatest deterrent at the same time. I don't see either of you coming up with any sort of solution just shutting down any feedback, or solution proposals by repeatedly saying this game is in service of the story, or saying crap like people should have known what they were getting into.

The really big problem with the story is simply that it grinds your sense of progression to a screeching halt, and simultaneously gates content so any time you spend on other activities only prolongs how long your progression is capped.

You can't really progress your main class because you have no access to higher level content until you've cleared each expansion and post quests.
You can't progress any alternate classes, because the glut of the quests you're stuck on are max level for where the game has capped your progress.


The MSQ just doesn't meaningfully interact with the reward systems of the game, instead it locks you out of the reward system of the game. It just says "No XP or loot for you until you've done all of this". Sure, you eventually hit the point where you're level 90 on every class you want to play and you have item level 600 gear. Maybe then XP and loot don't really matter anymore and you'll be glad for story quests that keep you entertained. But trapping you in a false endgame for two weeks every so often while there is still endless stuff for you to earn is completely obnoxious.

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Originally Posted by SpiralMask

@OP: Yyyes, this is a jrpg that happens to be an mmo, not world of warcraft's design of a collection of endgame raiding/grinding systems with a few recognizable characters stapled on every so often.

The game is in service to the story, not the other way around.

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Whether it happens to be an MMO or not does not matter, it's still an MMO. It sells itself as being an MMORPG, not a JRPG with very few MMO aspects time-gated behind 200+ hours of solo questing with rare occasions of Duties/Trials.

It's absolutely fine that you like the story, I do too. What I don't like is it is REQUIRED. It is a MANDATORY slog of 200+ hours of story of very linear progression.

The majority of people who don't want changes are those who played the game cycle by cycle, so they haven't had to do it from start to finish. So, here's a challenge for you all, Go back to ARR with a level 1 character, NEVER touch any of the other side-stuff that doesn't get unlocked by the MSQ, do the REQUIRED dungeons/trials and see how long it takes before you give up and go back to the end-game.

I'm also tired of people throwing the "It's a Final Fantasy franchise" argument around as well. I've played, completed and 100%'d the majority of Final Fantasy games, and NONE of them required 200+ hours of story before getting to the "end-game" grind. In fact, The ones that I've 100%'d (Doing everything in-game) I've done so in LESS time than it has taken me JUST to get to Stormblood.

The problem isn't that it's a story-driven game, the problem is that it's REQUIRED to do and there is NO OTHER WAY TO GET TO END-GAME. It's linear and becomes nothing more than a job.

Not only that, when a new player decides to voice their problems with the fact that the MSQ gates pretty much everything in the game, only to be met with so many people telling them to "play something else" and "final fantasy games are not for you". It's sad, and it's toxic.

I came into this game alone, I didn't join because others were playing it. I joined because I wanted to meet people, make friend's and be able to enjoy the game with others. The MSQ discourages this, because 90% of it is solo content. Yes, I'm apart of an FC, but, in the 120+ hours I've played so far, I've had people do 3 duties with me and 1 trial. 120+ hours in an MMO and the ONLY time people have played with me is less than an 2 hours, but, this is fine, right?

From what you all keep saying, maybe SE should just completely remove the end-game, and everything else and just stick to the MSQ and that's it, right? Because, you know, "You should be playing this game for the MSQ". So, removal of everything else will keep you playing, right? Since the MSQ is SO good!

Then to top it all off, the other thing people throw at you is "buy a skip potion" Why? Why should I pay FULL PRICE for a game that has a SUBSCRIPTION to then have to pay to get to the point of the game I want to play?

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

If you can't attract and retain new players, the game will eventually die.

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They've continued to attract new players for years now and they end up retaining many of them. So where's the problem?

No MMO retains all of its new players. Not even WoW did. Outside of the rapid initial launch growth in Vanilla, the number of players subscribed was always a minority of total accounts created.

It's players that try to twist numbers into "this game is dying". It's not the numbers that do it. What usually kills a MMO is diverging too far from what had been a successful formula trying to attract a demographic that had no interest in the game and alienating what had been a happy and loyal player base in the process so those players quit.

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Originally Posted by LalaLlama

Whether it happens to be an MMO or not does not matter, it's still an MMO. It sells itself as being an MMORPG, not a JRPG with very few MMO aspects time-gated behind 200+ hours of solo questing with rare occasions of Duties/Trials.

It's absolutely fine that you like the story, I do too. What I don't like is it is REQUIRED. It is a MANDATORY slog of 200+ hours of story of very linear progression.

The majority of people who don't want changes are those who played the game cycle by cycle, so they haven't had to do it from start to finish. So, here's a challenge for you all, Go back to ARR with a level 1 character, NEVER touch any of the other side-stuff that doesn't get unlocked by the MSQ, do the REQUIRED dungeons/trials and see how long it takes before you give up and go back to the end-game.

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I've done that multiple times, and I will continue to do it again in the future. Why?

Because I enjoy going through the story and the character progression. I get the alt to level cap and then delete it. When I'm in the mood to repeat the process, I'll create a new alt and start again. Eventually I'll finish MSQ and delete it.

You're assuming that a MMORPG must revolve around end game when it doesn't need to. That's some terrible conditioning Blizzard inflicted on the industry with WoW's success and the industry ended up stagnating as a result. Every new MMO kept trying to copy WoW's formula and most ended up failing.

What's part of FFXIV's success? Because it doesn't follow WoW's "everything must revolve around end game formula". It offers a different experience despite a similarity to many design elements. Lower level content remains fun and even relevant to a fair degree. The journey matters to the game instead of just being a checkbox on a "To Do" list.

No, I'm not assuming MMORPG's should revolve around end-game. Please, tell me where I ever stated that. I'm not the one telling people how to play the game, am I? I'm not saying you SHOULDN'T do the MSQ and should get to the end-game content quickly. However, I am constantly being told that I NEED to slog through 200+ hours of MSQ, and that wanting other options to do so is wrong and I should "go play something else". I'm saying that MMO's should have OPTIONS as to how someone combat's the game. FF14 does not have this, because the only REAL progression throughout the levelling is done through the MSQ. If you don't do the MSQ, you don't get the new content.

You want to know what's part of FFXIV's success? The title. The name. The game franchise has been a thing since 1987. That's 35 years the franchise has existed.

If this formula was done in ANY other game, it wouldn't work, especially for new players.

It's perfectly fine to play through the whole MSQ parts at a time like a lot of you have. It's not fine to expect new players to play through 9+ years of solo content so that they can finally branch out and do other things, without it being detrimental to their progression of the game.

If I want to go do hunts instead of the MSQ. I can do, but, doing those hunts changes nothing. I'm still at the same place as I started, just at a higher level. Nothing but my numbers increase, my location in the story doesn't. So, to progress, I NEED to slog through 200+ hours of story.

Also, I highly doubt you do 150-200+ hours of story content before deleting it. But, if you do, then good for you. But that doesn't mean everyone else should HAVE to do it as well. Do you expect EVERY player to do PvP or Ultimate's? How about making everyone be REQUIRED to do RP, because, you know, "it's an RPG game". Do you think everyone will be happy to be FORCED into doing something they don't want to do?

But that doesn't matter, it's only screwing over the new players and will eventually bring the downfall of the game. Nothing too terrible, right? I mean, player numbers don't change 2 weeks after a new patch is out, right? They don't go down or anything.

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Originally Posted by Tychonius

The really big problem with the story is simply that it grinds your sense of progression to a screeching halt, and simultaneously gates content so any time you spend on other activities only prolongs how long your progression is capped.

You can't really progress your main class because you have no access to higher level content until you've cleared each expansion and post quests.
You can't progress any alternate classes, because the glut of the quests you're stuck on are max level for where the game has capped your progress.


The MSQ just doesn't meaningfully interact with the reward systems of the game, instead it locks you out of the reward system of the game. It just says "No XP or loot for you until you've done all of this". Sure, you eventually hit the point where you're level 90 on every class you want to play and you have item level 600 gear. Maybe then XP and loot don't really matter anymore and you'll be glad for story quests that keep you entertained. But trapping you in a false endgame for two weeks every so often while there is still endless stuff for you to earn is completely obnoxious.

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Only ARR suffers from that problem. HW, SB, ShB, all of their post launch patch MSQ can be cleared within a few days and then you are right into the next expansion. And that is if you are intentionally going slow and playing only a few hours per day. You can get it done in 1 day if you sit down and play through it. Not to mention only ARR suffers from the tiny xp rewards in post quests because at the time it was a question of "will the game last to even get a expansion?" where later expansions did not have that issue because the game was stable and not trying to recover from one of the worst launches in video game history.

Which is why they went and massively trimmed the post ARR quests down by just over half. We used to have around 168 quests between ARR and HW.

And the only thing that keeps your main class from progressing is class quests which is the 52-70 block. Aside from that you can easily use the market board to get gear upgrades.
When it comes to alt classes by virtue of the main class being higher they get a baseline +100% xp boost. You can easily get an alt job to level 50 in a weekend with just the hunting log and duty support, much less if you actually do leveling roulette each day.

Being able to grind through stuff, buy gear upgrades from the market or grind up other classes aren't a remedy to the problem that actually doing the quest yields no meaningful progress.

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Originally Posted by Tychonius

Being able to grind through stuff, buy gear upgrades from the market or grind up other classes aren't a remedy to the problem that actually doing the quest yields no meaningful progress.

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The progress you are making is progress on the story which develops the world, the characters, and the conflicts that drive the plot. Everything important to a story based game which is what the Final Fantasy franchise has always been about. So as long as you are doing quests you are making progress by FF standards. This is why the dungeons are all behind the MSQ, because unlike WoW you are going into those dungeons for a purpose and the dungeons serve the plot.

If advancing the plot and experiencing the story is not meaningful progress in a game built around that in a franchise built around that to you then just buy the skips. You won't understand a thing and the game is going to feel really hollow really fast and you will likely quit just as quickly because of how short endgame progress is going to be. This game is simply not designed the way WoW is.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's players that try to twist numbers into "this game is dying". It's not the numbers that do it. What usually kills a MMO is diverging too far from what had been a successful formula trying to attract a demographic that had no interest in the game and alienating what had been a happy and loyal player base in the process so those players quit.

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You realize that is what is going on with the game currently right?

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

You're assuming that a MMORPG must revolve around end game when it doesn't need to. That's some terrible conditioning Blizzard inflicted on the industry with WoW's success and the industry ended up stagnating as a result. Every new MMO kept trying to copy WoW's formula and most ended up failing.

What's part of FFXIV's success? Because it doesn't follow WoW's "everything must revolve around end game formula". It offers a different experience despite a similarity to many design elements. Lower level content remains fun and even relevant to a fair degree. The journey matters to the game instead of just being a checkbox on a "To Do" list.

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This game is based off of WoW. Yoshi P has literally said they played WoW and used it as an example how to to develop the game. You think FFXIV made the whole tome stone system attached to a daily roulette? That was WoW.

The most common thing I have noticed, are people that are against being able to skip story and level other ways are people that are willing to play the MSQ multiple times.
Also a large number of people keep bringing up that end game is the only thing that is gated. There is a lot of stuff that is gated by the MSQ, ever normal mode raid, things like bozja, mount farming, hunts in various zones, relic quests, dungeons, your daily roulettes, eureka, ishgard housing, shirugane housing, crafting, I mean it's a long list of things that are outside of the scope of current end game content. It becomes a to do quest line to unlock a lot of stuff in this game. I personally don't see a reason not to allow people to progress levels the way they want to vs forcing them to do the MSQ all the way to the newest expansion. Specially when we are about to start a whole new story anyways. Ideally with new characters but it seems we are sticking with the scions which I find a bit disappointing but what ever.

The other problem is people gain more experience than needed to get into the next expansion. I had coworkers back in ShB that were going into HW at level 57 and the excuse people give is level another job. Well not everyone wants to level multiple jobs starting off in this game, might as well go back to ARR and require people to level multiple jobs for cross skills then if you think that is a good suggestion.

Now that I am reading more posts the question I have for people opposed to making the MSQ gate less content is how does affect your ability to play or your enjoyment of the game? The MSQ teaches you nothing about how to play your character or be good at the game so making less of it mandatory won't affect the quality of players at your level or in dungeons you are doing, even more so with dungeons in ARR and soon to be every expansion soloable. If you choose to go back and make an alt and go through the entirety of the MSQ that should be a choice you can make, but if you would rather just skip the post ARR MSQ and move to HW I don't see why that is an issue.

And for the argument about just buying a story skip, doesn't that invalidate any point you would make about the importance of playing through the story? If the story is so important why would SE give you the option to purchase a way to skip it? Why not let people skip the post expansion content if they just want to keep pushing forward with their characters instead of holding them back to sit through story they may or may not care about?

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

...snips...

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Yoshi-p did look at what wow because at this time the 1.0 was a mess... something that was coming from an another ages... but it end here... Wow barely create anything, they simply did retake what was existing somewhere else for make it part of the game. them amazing insight was to arrive to merge all of this.
but at the same time.... wow did grow lazy with time, refusing to really evolve.
when you play FF14 today and check what it was in the 1.0 or 2.0 the game have changed a lot. they always try to recreate stuff and improve. but they are smart enough for know that some stuff are working and using them too.

that said, people complaining about the story in FF14 are.... weird... FF14 was always known for his story. i agree the quest of the 2.0-2.X need to be redone... but if you think about it... they are quite old now. and they plan to change this for ages, but they need time to redo the quest, the cinematic and such... it's not an easy task especially since they continue to pump content into the game at an insane pace.
and honestly, skip is not a good idea, some part of the story is insane and honestly arrive to endwalker without experience all feel like a loose. because the story of the expansion will feel less interesting, you will not have meet the character nor learn to love them or hate them.

FF14 is a story game with mmo component. if someone come to play the game without doing the story... i feel they have miss the whole point. yes you have tons of different activity you can do... but i feel they have more meaningfull if you know the world in which you evolve. why wow did work soo well... because of warcraft 3 and the character powerfull that did draw people into this world. at least that why i was part of the first wave in wow vanilla.i did play until cataclysm and did stop after... because for me they had loose them way after lich king.
but here i'm always draw back, because this world is loved by the dev as much as we love it... making every patch having an impact on us...

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Originally Posted by Amenara

Now that I am reading more posts the question I have for people opposed to making the MSQ gate less content is how does affect your ability to play or your enjoyment of the game? The MSQ teaches you nothing about how to play your character or be good at the game so making less of it mandatory won't affect the quality of players at your level or in dungeons you are doing, even more so with dungeons in ARR and soon to be every expansion soloable. If you choose to go back and make an alt and go through the entirety of the MSQ that should be a choice you can make, but if you would rather just skip the post ARR MSQ and move to HW I don't see why that is an issue.

And for the argument about just buying a story skip, doesn't that invalidate any point you would make about the importance of playing through the story? If the story is so important why would SE give you the option to purchase a way to skip it? Why not let people skip the post expansion content if they just want to keep pushing forward with their characters instead of holding them back to sit through story they may or may not care about?

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more i have a question... why play the game? if you want a game where you play with other you have tons of other game similar where story are escuse? why not learn to enjoy the world?
and you say it will not people play better and such, true, but why the fact that they don't want to do msq impact me? i like the fact that content is gated behind the story. it make dungeon, raid more interesting... at least the content gated behind msq are understandable than some content you can find in game a la wow where a dungeon is more an escuse for get loot and do a mission in group.

all in all, why people doesn't wanting to do msq must affect people that love msq? or enjoy the fact that content is gated behind it for make it part of the story...

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

more i have a question... why play the game? if you want a game where you play with other you have tons of other game similar where story are escuse? why not learn to enjoy the world?
and you say it will not people play better and such, true, but why the fact that they don't want to do msq impact me? i like the fact that content is gated behind the story. it make dungeon, raid more interesting... at least the content gated behind msq are understandable than some content you can find in game a la wow where a dungeon is more an escuse for get loot and do a mission in group.

all in all, why people doesn't wanting to do msq must affect people that love msq? or enjoy the fact that content is gated behind it for make it part of the story...

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I can't speak for everyone, but I play the game because I enjoy playing with the friends I have made along the way. As for the reason other people play the game it can be as varied as they like the story, gameplay, raids, glamour, RP, really any number of reasons. Pigeonholing people into one aspect of the game because you and others think people have to enjoy the story to want to play FF14 is a narrow way to approach any game, especially an MMO. Everything you said is a personal opinion for yourself and may not be the same for everyone else. All I am wanting is that people have the option to play their leveling experience in a way that they enjoy vs forcing them to play through hundreds of hours of MSQ that they may or may not want to.

now this is coming from somebody who tolerated the story up to HW cause i only tolerated ARR cause i understood it was the "world building" chapter of the story but to sit here and say that people complaining about ARR story being a slog gameplay wise not even story wise (and yes there is still ALOT that could prolly be trimmed story wise from post ARR) are weird is in and of itself weird. if i wanted a story with slow progression in gameplay i'd play a JRPG, it's one of the biggest reasons people hate the it's a JRPG that just so happens to be an MMO perspective. you're denying an entire side of the GAME to justify locking out for another part. how would you feel if you had to clear ultimates after leveling for 100 levels to unlock a super well crafted story and the leveling felt bad? then do what those people are and say you want to have access to the story but there's no way to skip to the ultimates to reach the story (and no don't hit me with the whole buy story skip BS)

you starting to see why this is catch 22? there's a reason most story based games are in fact single player games or if they are multiplayer they lock alot of the worldbuilding behind sidequests, NPC conversations in the overworld, random events, etc... also if you want a game with a good story why not go play like any of the other FF games? you see how stupid that argument is?

having an alternative path to reach content that people want to play is not hindering you in any way. yoshi-p will still make a well crafted story but now we're not punishing people who might see this MMORPG as a more beginner friendly MMORPG (which is the way it's headed sadly but i digress). or for example hell i didn't even join for the story i joined for the music and the fact i could test and play all jobs on one character, plus i had seen older gameplay and thought wow there's a bit of depth to this. now thats not to say i didn't come to like the story post ARR but the point is that if they do want to experience the story later on it's almost as if we have an entire system for going back and TAKING your time to complete it/watching major CS and that can be accessed while having access to everything the game has to offer

and as i said when i suggested a simple alternative system for skipping the story the dungeons and trials themselves are more than enough to setup a basic story for each expansion in a vaccum with some slight overarching points ala ARR and STB with the garleans

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

The progress you are making is progress on the story which develops the world, the characters, and the conflicts that drive the plot. [...]

If advancing the plot and experiencing the story is not meaningful progress in a game built around that in a franchise built around that to you then just buy the skips.

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This is a lazy argument. This is literally the only RPG in existence where progression and story don't flow together seamlessly and back each other up, but instead get in each other's way. That is the criticism I have for this game, and I'm not going to accept "If you hate that the story and the progression fight each other you just don't like the story enough" as an argument for why things should be that way.

It's a massive flaw in the game. There is no other RPG I can think of that has this problem or where this would be acceptable.

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Originally Posted by Tychonius

This is a lazy argument. This is literally the only RPG in existence where progression and story don't flow together seamlessly and back each other up, but instead get in each other's way.

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What does this even mean?

Also I could -literally- list several rpgs where progression doesn’t flow with the story, even going so far as hindering it.

Ultima Exodus being infamous, where leveling up is both a punishment and largely meaningless.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

What does this even mean?

Also I could -literally- list several rpgs where progression doesn’t flow with the story, even going so far as hindering it.

Ultima Exodus being infamous, where leveling up is both a punishment and largely meaningless.

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Yes in Ultima Exodus your stats are raised separately from your level and you can choose whether or not you want to level up. So if you increase your stats to max without touching your level you are proportionally more powerful than many of the monsters the game throws at you. It's also a game from 1983 and this type of advancement system hasn't really been copied to other games or is considered anything other than a flawed design.

Flawed advancement systems exist in many games. Probably the biggest one that comes to mind is Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion, where putting all the skills you don't want to use as your main skills gives you a much more powerful character because you only level up when your main skills go up, so as long as you don't put any of the skills you want to use as main skills you can raise them to 100 while the game still considers you level 1 and scales all content to level 1.

Neither of those are examples of a game where the story and the advancement work against each other though. they are simply games where the advancement system is badly designed and the most powerful characters are created by not using the system in the most intuitive way. That's simply not the same as a game where the story fits so badly into the natural progression of a player that you need to be artificially capped for significant lengths of time just so the story can be told.

But, more importantly, even if you could name other games with the same problem, how does that somehow excuse the existence of the problem here?

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

This game is based off of WoW. Yoshi P has literally said they played WoW and used it as an example how to to develop the game. You think FFXIV made the whole tome stone system attached to a daily roulette? That was WoW."

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If you really want to know the influencers for this game, here's an interview from last year where he discusses that in depth. https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fanta...-interview-wow

As for the whole tomestone system? If World of Warcraft had implemented such a system in their dungeon instances, I might give some credence to your conjectures. However, rewards that were anything like 'tomestones' in WoW have always been attached to daily quests, not dungeon roulettes. Dungeons have never been required content in WoW. So much for being a copycat game, eh?

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Originally Posted by LalaLlama

The majority of people who don't want changes are those who played the game cycle by cycle, so they haven't had to do it from start to finish. So, here's a challenge for you all, Go back to ARR with a level 1 character, NEVER touch any of the other side-stuff that doesn't get unlocked by the MSQ, do the REQUIRED dungeons/trials and see how long it takes before you give up and go back to the end-game.

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I've played through the MSQ multiple times. Lore and creating multiple characters are both things I like. It's certainly a bit of a trudge to get through parts of it, but other parts I really enjoy replaying, and it certainly doesn't send me running back to endgame – there simply isn't much there for me. I'd rather build up another character and play with glamours.

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Originally Posted by LalaLlama

Not only that, when a new player decides to voice their problems with the fact that the MSQ gates pretty much everything in the game, only to be met with so many people telling them to "play something else" and "final fantasy games are not for you". It's sad, and it's toxic.

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I continue to be puzzled by the argument that "it's toxic to tell people to play something else". I've tried and disliked and abandoned dozens of games over time. It's how I find the things that I do like. No game can cater to every player, so if you have deep-seated issues with one then there is probably something else out there that you'd enjoy more.

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Originally Posted by LalaLlama

Then to top it all off, the other thing people throw at you is "buy a skip potion" Why? Why should I pay FULL PRICE for a game that has a SUBSCRIPTION to then have to pay to get to the point of the game I want to play?

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Like it or not (I'm not particularly keen on it myself) we have signed up for a game that we accept requires a monthly fee. If you play through the MSQ, that's maybe two months of paid subscription that you pay for. Money + time in = progress out.

A skip fast-forwards you to the result of that two months' progress, giving you the progress without needing to spend the time. From that perspective, it makes some degree of sense that SE wants you to pay them the money you would have had to spend on subscription fees to get to where you want to go.

On that logic, you haven't lost money by skipping (assuming you would have persevered to the end) and you're still well ahead on time spent, which makes it seem like not such a poor deal if you're willing to pay at all.

I won't deny it – a free skip option would be nice. But I can't see SE introducing the option for players to infinitely do it for free when right now they make money off it.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I've played through the MSQ multiple times. Lore and creating multiple characters are both things I like. It's certainly a bit of a trudge to get through parts of it, but other parts I really enjoy replaying, and it certainly doesn't send me running back to endgame – there simply isn't much there for me. I'd rather build up another character and play with glamours.

I continue to be puzzled by the argument that "it's toxic to tell people to play something else". I've tried and disliked and abandoned dozens of games over time. It's how I find the things that I do like. No game can cater to every player, so if you have deep-seated issues with one then there is probably something else out there that you'd enjoy more.

Like it or not (I'm not particularly keen on it myself) we have signed up for a game that we accept requires a monthly fee. If you play through the MSQ, that's maybe two months of paid subscription that you pay for. Money + time in = progress out.

A skip fast-forwards you to the result of that two months' progress, giving you the progress without needing to spend the time. From that perspective, it makes some degree of sense that SE wants you to pay them the money you would have had to spend on subscription fees to get to where you want to go.

On that logic, you haven't lost money by skipping (assuming you would have persevered to the end) and you're still well ahead on time spent, which makes it seem like not such a poor deal if you're willing to pay at all.

I won't deny it – a free skip option would be nice. But I can't see SE introducing the option for players to infinitely do it for free when right now they make money off it.

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1. as i've stated before a story skip option will in no way shape or form affect how YOU play the game so stop using that as a counterpoint as to why others should slog through parts

2. cause it is toxic it's why telling people oh you don't like a thing about the game? go play another game, is toxic. like i said i didn't even join for the story and thought ARR was a slog so i should've just quit right then right? and not come to actually enjoy the story later on. get off this high horse of well people don't enjoy the game for the reasons i do so they should just go play something else automatically

3.for everyone else please please never condone stuff like this it's the reason more and more game companies feel they can literally do anything and get away with it or get a little backlash then attempt it again like 2 games down the line

also yes a free path to skip story will lose them money but very few people are gonna sit there and level 5 different alts through dungeons and trials alone their main and maybe one alt at most there's still plenty of reasons to just "boost" your character/alternative jobs they wanna play

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

If you really want to know the influencers for this game, here's an interview from last year where he discusses that in depth. https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fanta...-interview-wow

As for the whole tomestone system? If World of Warcraft had implemented such a system in their dungeon instances, I might give some credence to your conjectures. However, rewards that were anything like 'tomestones' in WoW have always been attached to daily quests, not dungeon roulettes. Dungeons have never been required content in WoW. So much for being a copycat game, eh?

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Pretty sure Wraith and Cata had a token system tied into running the dungeons to get your class sets. And the raids dropped tokens to get a better raid set for heroics IIRC it's been a long time. I do remember heroic dungeons in Wraith was a stepping stone into raiding Nax as well as in Cata.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I continue to be puzzled by the argument that "it's toxic to tell people to play something else". I've tried and disliked and abandoned dozens of games over time. It's how I find the things that I do like. No game can cater to every player, so if you have deep-seated issues with one then there is probably something else out there that you'd enjoy more.

I won't deny it – a free skip option would be nice. But I can't see SE introducing the option for players to infinitely do it for free when right now they make money off it.

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It's not really toxic it's just sort of a understatement. Obviously people wouldn't make suggestions of give criticism if they didn't like the game at all. And it is super common for "just quit" to be the answer to criticism on the forums.

You are right, SE probably won't do anything when they can make money off it, but I can still view it as a scummy practice.

All this talk about story being "oh so important" and neccessary for XIV is laughable. How much does Yoshida value the integrity of that story? 21.75€. That's it.

You know, if the story was really the only reason why the game exists and was entirely driven by it you wouldn't already be allowed to skip it for ~1.8 months worth of subscription. This is a simple business tool based on an estimate of how long you would normally take to complete MSQ. A "you can either subscribe and play for X amount of time working through some content we've released before and still want a return on investment on or just drop us a lump sum ahead and be free". Pretty standard practice these days and not like it's a big deal... but at least don't try to cover it with "MuH sToRy" bull.

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Originally Posted by Tychonius

This is a lazy argument. This is literally the only RPG in existence where progression and story don't flow together seamlessly and back each other up, but instead get in each other's way. That is the criticism I have for this game, and I'm not going to accept "If you hate that the story and the progression fight each other you just don't like the story enough" as an argument for why things should be that way.

It's a massive flaw in the game. There is no other RPG I can think of that has this problem or where this would be acceptable.

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I'm confused how the two fight each other. Can you explain this?